Albany County District Attorney David Soares discusses the events of Saturday morning prior to the Saint Patrick's Day Parade and the subsequent arrests on Hudson Avenue. in Albany, at a press conference at the Public Safety Building in Albany, NY on Monday, March 14, 2011. Behind Soares from left are Steve Stella, Director of Safety and Security for St. Rose, J. Frank Wiley, Chief of Police for UAlbany, and Chief Steve Krokoff. (Lori Van Buren / Times Union) less

Albany County District Attorney David Soares discusses the events of Saturday morning prior to the Saint Patrick's Day Parade and the subsequent arrests on Hudson Avenue. in Albany, at a press conference at the ... more

Photo: Lori Van Buren

Image 27 of 30

Albany County District Attorney David Soares discusses the events of Saturday morning prior to the Saint Patrick's Day Parade and the subsequent arrests on Hudson Avenue. in Albany, at a press conference at the Public Safety Building in Albany, NY on Monday, March 14, 2011. Behind Soares from left are Karl Luntta, Director of Media Relations for UAlbany, Steve Stella, Director of Safety and Security for St. Rose, J. Frank Wiley, Chief of Police for UAlbany, and Albany Police Chief Steve Krokoff and Thomas Gebhardt, Director of Personal Safety and Off-Campus Affairs University Police Department. (Lori Van Buren / Times Union) less

Albany County District Attorney David Soares discusses the events of Saturday morning prior to the Saint Patrick's Day Parade and the subsequent arrests on Hudson Avenue. in Albany, at a press conference at the ... more

Photo: Lori Van Buren

Image 28 of 30

Albany Police Chief Steve Krokoff discusses the events of Saturday morning prior to the Saint Patrick's Day Parade and the subsequent arrests on Hudson Avenue. in Albany, at a press conference at the Public Safety Building in Albany, NY on Monday, March 14, 2011. (Lori Van Buren / Times Union) less

Albany Police Chief Steve Krokoff discusses the events of Saturday morning prior to the Saint Patrick's Day Parade and the subsequent arrests on Hudson Avenue. in Albany, at a press conference at the Public ... more

Photo: Lori Van Buren

Image 29 of 30

Albany Police Chief Steve Krokoff discusses the events of Saturday morning prior to the Saint Patrick's Day Parade and the subsequent arrests on Hudson Avenue. in Albany, at a press conference at the Public Safety Building in Albany, NY on Monday, March 14, 2011. (Lori Van Buren / Times Union) less

Albany Police Chief Steve Krokoff discusses the events of Saturday morning prior to the Saint Patrick's Day Parade and the subsequent arrests on Hudson Avenue. in Albany, at a press conference at the Public ... more

Photo: Lori Van Buren

Image 30 of 30

Riot a rift in town and gown

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ALBANY -- A beer-soaked Saturday morning melee described by residents as the worst in recent memory is forcing the city to again confront the fraught relationship between full-time Pine Hills residents and the college students who often treat the neighborhood as their off-campus playground.

By Monday, the number of college students facing charges had topped 40 as police and prosecutors vowed to use the drunken revelers' own cellphone videos to build cases against them.

"Let me deliver this message to you," Albany County District Attorney David Soares said. "Many of you who felt, or believe now, that you've gotten away with something, the pain is forthcoming. You will be held responsible."

Soares and Police Chief Steven Krokoff recounted the chaotic scene around 7 a.m. Saturday when hundreds of people -- many of them University at Albany students participating in "Kegs and Eggs" pre-St. Patrick's Day parties -- sacked what once was a stable neighborhood, trying to overturn cars, tossing appliances, brawling in the street and hurling epithets at cops trying to quell the riot.

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"Some of these kids that thought that they could come to Albany and use it as their playground and thought that they were going to leave with a degree are instead going to leave with a conviction," said Krokoff, himself a UAlbany graduate. Soares vowed to bring about a "collective responsibility" that includes landlords whose properties were launching pads for chaos and beer distributors who helped fuel it.

On Saturday, five people -- including three UAlbany students -- were charged with felonies. Of 14 arraignments Monday, six were for noise-ordinance violations, five for disorderly conduct, two for carrying alcohol in public in an open container and one for marijuana possession. More were not charged initially, Krokoff said, because police made clearing the streets safely a priority. Two police officers were slightly injured.

The debauchery in Pine Hills cost at least $12,000 to clean up, said Detective James Miller, a police spokesman.

While the shaky videos of the mayhem burned up local websites, UAlbany officials -- who have taken pains to distance the university from its former No. 1 party school reputation -- condemned the students' actions as "reprehensible" and "hooliganism." In an apology letter issued to the news media, University President George M. Philip said the school "shares the outrage of community members and wants to assure them that UAlbany does not condone such behavior." The full letter is published in the Letters to the Editor section.

Philip said UAlbany is working with law enforcement to identify others who were involved and pursue sanctions against them -- potentially up to suspension and expulsion -- through the university's judicial process.

What many said was the worst incident in the city's student neighborhood in recent memory also underscored long-standing friction between permanent residents of Pine Hills -- perhaps the city's most diverse middle-class neighborhood -- and the transient student set known for trashing low-grade rental housing one semester at a time.

Hudson Avenue and Hamilton Street have long been considered the epicenter of the student ghetto, despite efforts by the city and local colleges to re-brand the area as an "education district."

In an unguarded moment, one College of Saint Rose official recently suggested to the Common Council that it may be too late to save those blocks, which are now nearly devoid of resident homeowners.

"We've lost Hudson and Hamilton," said Mike D'Attilio, Saint Rose's executive director of government and community relations, "we don't want to lose Morris and Myrtle as well."

D'Attilio was speaking for Saint Rose's efforts to build a new Madison Avenue dorm, saying that by promoting homeownership among its own employees it hoped to spare Morris Street and Myrtle Avenue from the same fate.

But the premise underlying Saint Rose's argument for why it needs the controversial new dorm in the first place may be telling: According to the college, parents think so little of the off-campus housing and safety of the neighborhoods that they don't want their children living there. Saint Rose officials received no reports that any of their students were involved and noted that may be because the college in on spring break this week.

Antonette Fritz and her 87-year-old mother, Mary, are among the few who have stuck it out on Hudson Avenue. In return, they've endured decades of abuse from college students, Fritz said.

She said she called police Saturday morning to report a raucous fraternity party across the street -- and only later learned what was unfolding several blocks up.

"Except for the air horns and a lot of drunken screaming, we've seen much worse. That was the irony of it. I didn't even know that riot was going on," Fritz said of the unruly status quo, adding that she believes years of putting up with all-night parties and fireworks fusillades contributed to her brother Andrew's premature death.

Fritz said her family had tried to urge her ailing mother to leave the house she's lived in since 1950.

"We were trying to shield her from it, and we wanted her to move, and she said she just couldn't, it would just kill her to move," Fritz said. "I really feel for the police department. It would take the whole force to watch students all the time and prevent these things."

Pine Hills Neighborhood Association President Todd Hunsinger praised the police response, saying neighbors asked for a stronger presence and got it. And while Hunsinger, who teaches at SUNY Cobleskill, cautioned not to assume that every rioter was a UAlbany student or that those who were are representative of some 18,000 undergrads, he said fixing the problem will require the colleges to look honestly at their roles in preventing future flare-ups.

"We need for people to take ownership of what happened. UAlbany needs to take ownership that it was their students houses' behind it," Hunsinger said. "Hopefully, this is everybody's bottom."

Bob Van Amburgh, a senior aide to Mayor Jerry Jennings who was out of town Monday, said the city would be meeting with college officials and speculated that the city's long, harsh winter may have contributed to the mayhem.

"Does that give them permission to just act like they did? Absolutely not." Van Amburgh said. "But I do think there's sort of a pent-up energy that was ready to explode."

The riot -- which police attributed to the spillover from several parties concentrated on Hudson Avenue -- began around 6:45 a.m. and took about an hour to disperse, Krokoff said.

In some cases, the parties began early the night before and continued into the wee hours.

"We had the majority of our police department working," Krokoff said, noting that the weekend before St. Patrick's Day is notoriously busy. "We were planning for certain situations to occur. Predictable is preventable; however, what we did not expect was for the kickoff to be at 4 a.m."